"Black cat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... again forgot what he had been told. After long remaining silent before his book, absorbed in the contemplation of a wood-cut depicting a black cat, he began to hum some words of his own composition: 'Oh, you pretty cat; oh, you ugly cat; oh, you pretty, ugly cat,' and so on, ad infinitum, ever in the same ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... them the rough side of her tongue; but, Lord bless you, her bark's worse than her bite. Her heart is just set on Kit, and she would not hurt a hair of her head in her most contrary moods, when even the black cat won't stay in the place she is making such a scrimmage with the pots and pans. But Kit only laughs. 'It is Ma'am at her music,' she says; 'but it t'aint the sort of music I like.' Yes, indeed, sir, I have heered her say that ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... has become a typical figure: she was usually a simple, old woman living in a lonely cottage with a black cat, gathering herbs by the light of the moon. But she was not always an ancient beldam; some witches were known as the purest and fairest maidens of the village; some were ladies in high station; some were men. A ground ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... nose bent down to meet her chin, and her chin bent up to reach her nose; her face was gray with great age, and her hair was as white as snow. She wore a long red cloak over her shoulders, and a great black cat sat on the ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... bought, unless he had sent to Philadelphia on purpose. However, he was a very ingenious boy, and resolved to manufacture paint-brushes for himself. With this design, he laid hold upon—what do you think? why, upon a respectable old black cat, who was sleeping ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... stick there's a witch astride, The string you see to her leg is tied. She will do a mischief if she can, But the string is held by a careful man, And whenever the evil-minded witch Would cut come caper, he gives a twitch. As for the hag, you can't see her, But hark! you can hear her black cat's purr, And now and then, as a car goes by, You may catch a gleam ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the gondola, we enter a wretched hole, where we find an old woman sitting on a rickety bed, holding a black cat in her arms, with five or six more purring around her. The two old cronies held together a long discourse of which, most likely, I was the subject. At the end of the dialogue, which was carried on in the patois of Forli, the witch having received ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... little wiser than she had come. But daylight showed that the party consisted of an old man, and his son, and his son's wife, and her sister, and three small children, besides some cochin-china fowl, and a black cat with vividly green eyes. This much was apparent on the surface. Also that the old man was frail, bent, shrivelled, and civil spoken, that the son was "a big soft gomeral of a fellow," that both the women were sandily flaxen-haired, with broad, flat cheeks and light ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... then, until they reached the old mill site, upon which work had not yet begun. They found a shady spot, and seating themselves upon the bank, baited their lines, and dropped them into a quiet pool. For quite a while their patience was unrewarded by anything more than a nibble. By and by a black cat came down from the ruined mill, and sat down upon the bank at a short ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... off her charge to the kitchen, where she fed and soothed it with such good effect that, when she came back, half an hour later, the little black cat cuddled down on her arm, purring like a teakettle in spite ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... minutes behind came Dan, just in time to offer loyal homage on the altar of friendship and success. There was a warm clasp of the hand, and a sincere if brief tribute. "You are some swell racer, George," and, as one making a vow, "you can bet I'll never throw rocks at another black cat so long as ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... calamity,—Larry, who is so soaked in a species of folk-lore, blended of tradition, imagination, and high spirits that, after hearing him talk, it is easy to believe that he deals in magic by the aid of a black cat, and unfortunately the cat brought in by David was of ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... outbuildings, and the copings of the walls of grimy backyards, where the sooty trees were making a fight with the spring, and putting forth a rash of buds like green points of electric light: the same sort of light that showed in the eyes of a black cat seasonably appearing under them. Inquiries into English civilization can always wait, but such passing effects stay for no man, and I put them down roughly in behalf of a futile philosopher who ought to have studied them in ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... nondescript trinkets and gewgaws, which seemed to have little to recommend them, besides rust and the antiquity which it indicates. In the midst of this wreck of ancient books and utensils, with a gravity equal to Marius among the ruins of Carthage, sat a large black cat, which, to a superstitious eye, might have presented the genius loci, the tutelar demon of the apartment. The floor, as well as the table and chairs, was overflowed by the same mare magnum of miscellaneous trumpery, where it would have been as impossible to find any individual ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... her arms, and calling out, "Dido Dums, Dido Dums, come here, deary," when a fine Persian cat jumped on to her right shoulder. "Now Diddles Doddles, Diddles Doddles," and another Persian cat jumped on to her left shoulder. "Tootsy Wootsy," she called once more, and a black cat scrambled up to the crown of the poke bonnet. And one by one they were summoned by some endearing diminutive, until the nine cats had taken possession of every possible coign of vantage which was offered by the old lady's capacious ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... Black Cat," one tragedy is a preliminary of the climax and another is in a manner the result of it; but the real climax is the ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... his horse was champing the bit, and pawing with impatience. Along the deserted streets, out of the sleeping town, he rode toward the long stone bridge that spanned the winding river. When he had reached the centre, his horse darted aside, because of the sudden leap of a black cat from the coping of the nearest pier, whence she sped on, keeping just ahead of him. The spectral sickle of a waning moon hung on the edge of the sky, and up and down the banks of the stream floated phantoms of silvery ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... crouched a huge black cat, glaring steadily with great yellow eyes out of the murky confusion, like the familiar spirit of this ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... full length in a sunny place, the prince found a very old, half-blind, miserable cat. The poor creature was lean, and its fur had fallen off in patches; it could no longer catch birds, nor even mice, and there was nobody to give it milk. But cats do not look far into the future; and this old black cat—Frank was his name—had got a breakfast somehow, and was happy in the sun. The prince stood and looked at him pityingly, and he thought that even a sick old cat was, in some ...
— Prince Prigio - From "His Own Fairy Book" • Andrew Lang
... angel!" the lady then exclaimed, as if to encourage somebody who was hesitating at the door. Six eyes followed hers. The angel was a huge black cat, with green eyes, that shone like emeralds. Mabel felt like getting down to pet her, and Edith who did not admire cats, felt a cold ...
— Five Happy Weeks • Margaret E. Sangster
... had been stretched near the fire rose at her entrance, and spat as if he resented the intrusion as well as his mistress. Francis glanced at the mysterious signs, the black cat, the old woman, and a half wish came into her mind that she had braved the fury of the storm rather than enter such an abode. As if in answer to her thought the ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... Armenian cap arrayed And girt with engines of his trade; (As Skeletons, and Spheres, and Cubes; As Amulets and Optic Tubes;) With dusky depths behind revealing Strange shapes that dangled from the ceiling, While more to palsy the beholder A Black Cat ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... in a moment the two children were bending over a basket which was in the seat with Dinah. In the basket was Snoop, the big black cat. She always traveled that way with the Bobbseys. And she seemed very comfortable, for she was curled up on the blanket in the bottom of the basket. Snoop opened her eyes as Freddie and Flossie put their fingers through cracks and stroked her as well ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... know. You don't know. They," said Psmith, indicating the rest with a wave of the hand, "don't know. Nobody knows. His locality is as hard to ascertain as that of a black cat in a coal-cellar on a moonless night. Shortly before I joined this journal, Mr. Wilberfloss, by his doctor's orders, started out on a holiday, leaving no address. No letters were to be forwarded. He was to enjoy complete rest. Where is he now? Who shall say? Possibly ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... when the moon is full, take a black cat, place it where the moonbeams are thickest, sprinkle it with three drops of blood, not necessarily human, and rub its coat with the palm of the hand. Sparks will then be given out, and if those sparks appear crimson ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... had the five thousand and a few odd dollars, and all Bill Bassett had was the wanderlust and a black cat he had bought for a mascot. Bill shook hands with ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... Johnnie Vautrin, and, as far as Graeme could make out, he was about eight years old in actual years, but aged beyond belief in black arts which made him a terror to his kind. And his familiar, in the person of an enormous black cat, which came and ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... trying to tell you just now, only you didn't seem to be listening—a black cat ran across my path only this afternoon.' He smiled, gratified ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson
... was the Breton's son surrounded by a dozen ragamuffins of his own set. They took no notice of us. He had a beautiful black cat, that had a string tied to its hind legs. The boy was swinging it around his head and at times ducking it in the canal while his companions danced around him ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... There, on the ridge pole of the next roof, sat a black cat, big and terrible against the sky. "Ma-a-uw," said the ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... did he?" answered the young man, slyly. "My belief is, he has fallen in love with her. I saw a black cat on the stairs. She can make any body do it, as I was telling Aggey" (the young rogue had been to Soho since the morning); "I shall be the next victim, no doubt. It's no use saying to myself, 'Thou shalt not marry thy grandmother.' Her charms are too powerful for the rubric. ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... longing for a dance with his beloved at one of those balls which our peasants give in the winter, when the snow makes leisure in the mountains. A wizard anointed him for money, and straightway he turned into a black cat, and in three bounds was over the seas, at the door of his uncle's cottage, and among the dancers. He caught his beloved by the skirt to draw her attention; but she replied with a kick which sent him squealing back ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee
... himself some vague pretensions, or which, at least, he had studied and reflected upon till it had become with him a kind of monomania. Scott disavowed the possession of any gifts of that kind, evidently to the great disappointment of the inquirer, who then turned round and gave a signal to a huge black cat, hitherto unobserved, which immediately jumped up to a shelf, where it perched itself, and seemed to the excited senses of the visitors as if it had really been the familiar spirit of the mansion. 'He has poo'er,' said the dwarf in a voice which made the flesh of the hearers ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... hair and dark eyes like her father, while Buster John had golden hair and brown eyes like his mother. As for Drusilla, she was as black as the old black cat, and always in a good humor, except when she pretended to be angry. Sweetest Susan had wonderful dark eyes that made her face very serious except when she laughed, but she was as full of fun as Buster John, who ...
— Little Mr. Thimblefinger and His Queer Country • Joel Chandler Harris
... still more a captive Bound in Leonora's fetters; And remained thus, and the wedding Which soon took us home to Rhine-land Only made the rivets stronger. When I think of this, I feel that Tears on my mustache are rolling. For what now to me remaineth Of the past so fair, but memory, And the black cat, Hiddigeigei, And my Leonora's image. Thou my child. ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... suddenly becomes rich without any visible means to account for it, is said by the peasants to have found "la gatta;" in other words, to have made a compact with the evil one, the evidence of which is afforded by the presence of a black cat, whose stay in the dwelling of the contracting party is productive of a gold coin, deposited every night in his bedchamber. When the term has expired, the cat disappears, and ruin invariably falls upon the unwary customer of the fiend. Charlet accounted for the superstition ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... room stood a huge black cat with bristling tail and fiery eyes. It seemed as though he would dispute the entrance of the strangers, and Cuthbert said to himself that he had never seen an uglier-looking brute of the kind since the monster wildcat he had killed in the forest about his ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... small coal-black one. "Choose this, Hilary! Miranda says a black cat brings luck, though it don't look like we needed ...
— The S. W. F. Club • Caroline E. Jacobs
... power of the genius Maimoum, the son of Dimdim," replied the first voice. "But it would be quite simple for this holy chief of the dervishes to cure her if he only knew! In his convent there is a black cat which has a tiny white tip to its tail. Now to cure the princess the dervish must pull out seven of these white hairs, burn three, and with their smoke perfume the head of the princess. This will deliver her so completely that ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... will be seen that in some respects the panic bore a likeness to those that had preceded. The spirits, which took extraordinary and bizarre forms, were the offspring of the same perverted imaginations, but they had assumed new shapes. Ursley Kemp kept a white lamb, a little gray cat, a black cat, and a black toad. There were spirits of every sort, "two little thyngs like horses, one white, the other black'"; six "spirits like cowes ... as big as rattles"; spirits masquerading as blackbirds. One spirit strangely ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... cats, F. leo tigris." I see no reason why such should not yet be discovered; he was perhaps not aware that the jaguar of Brazil, which comes next to the tiger, has been found black (Felis nigra of Erxleben). A black tiger would be a prize. General MacMaster relates that he once watched a fine black cat basking in the sun, and noticed that in particular lights the animal exhibited most plainly the regular brindled markings of the ordinary gray wild or semi-wild cat. These markings were as black or blacker than ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... the farther wall. In the centre of this room, lying in the middle of a golden patch of sunlight, there was stretched a huge creature, as large as a tiger, but as black and sleek as ebony. It was simply a very enormous and very well-kept black cat, and it cuddled up and basked in that yellow pool of light exactly as a cat would do. It was so graceful, so sinewy, and so gently and smoothly diabolical, that I could not take ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to be led a few steps further, and then drew back again. "O Benny," said she, "there's her broomstick! there it is, right outside o' the door—and O Benny, Benny, there's her old black cat!" ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... what truth there was in the story of the Arabs having allied themselves to the Watuta. He had full faith in Musa, and hoped, if the Arabs had no hostile intentions towards him, he, Musa, would send him two of theirs; further, Suwarora wished Musa would send him a cat. A black cat was then given to the messenger for Suwarora, and Musa sent an account of all that I had done towards effecting a peace, saying that the Arabs had accepted my views, and if he would have patience ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... after having refused a dozen times the work of a Strand loafer whom he was in the habit of "treating," he would say, "Send it in, my boy, send it in, I'll see what can be done with it." There was a long counter, and the way to be published by Mr. B. was to straddle on the counter and play with a black cat. There was an Irishman behind this counter who, for three pounds a week, edited the magazine, read the MS., looked after the printer and binder, kept the accounts when he had a spare moment, and entertained the visitors. I did ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... for dat one 'bout de black cat crossin' de road, and, sho' 'nough, it come. Let me ask you one. How many people can yous find dat likes to have de black cat cross in front of 'em? Dat's right, no one likes dat. Let dis old cullud person inform yous dat it am sho' de bad luck sign. It is sign ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... jacal had a thatched roof with several large holes in it, and in the fireplace burned a roaring fire. That was some strange, but I didn't mind it and I was warming my hands before the fire and congratulating myself on my good luck, when a large black cat sprang from the outside into an open window, and said: 'Pardner, it looks like ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... personated by an actor named Jevon, who was followed in the part by Pinkethman, a comedian much commended by Steele in "The Tatler." Pinkethman was found so amusing in his motley coat, and what Cibber calls "that useless unmeaning mask of a black cat," that certain of his admirers fancied that much of the drollery and spirit of his grimace must be lost by the concealment of his face. Yielding to their request, therefore, he played one night without his mask. But the result was disappointing. "Pinkethman," it ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... instance of a misreading may be mentioned here, although it is not a literary blunder. A certain black cat was named Mephistopheles a name which greatly puzzled the little girl who played with the cat, so she very sensibly set to work to reduce the name to a form which she could understand, and she ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... met our gaze was certainly not a little amusing. On the top of a log which we sometimes used as a table sat the black cat, with a very demure expression on its countenance, and in front of it, sitting on the ground with his legs extended on either side of the log, was Peterkin. At the moment we saw him, he was gazing intently into the cat's face, with his nose about four ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... "Sally Ann's black cat!" said Riggs. "That story was started by some sea-lawyer full of gin, and the newspapers took it up for fun. There ain't no more a Devil's Admiral than there is ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... both sides. Ste. Marie, from his bed, cheered them on, but there came a commotion in the ivy which draped the wall below, and the two birds fled in ignominious haste, and just in the nick of time, for when the cause of the commotion shot into view it was a large black cat, of great bodily activity and an ardent single-heartedness ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... a girl about three years old, and she had a large black cat. The cat was of a jet black color, and her fur was very soft and glossy. It was ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... up at George's house as I passed, but except for a black cat sunning herself on the top of the gatepost there was no sign of life about the place. My thoughts went back to Joyce, and I wondered how the dinner party at the Savoy had gone off. I could almost see George sitting at one side of the table with that insufferable air of gallantry ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... viewing each other gravely as they waited. On the table there were now only some dirty plates, Mme Bron having recently distributed the last of the bouquets. A single fallen rose was withering on the floor in the neighborhood of the black cat, who had lain down and curled herself up while the kittens ran wild races and danced fierce gallops among the gentlemen's legs. Clarisse was momentarily inclined to turn La Faloise out. The idiot wasn't fond of animals, and that put the finishing touch to him! He was busy drawing in his legs because ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... who was an immense black cat, held in great reverence by the villagers, for he had the greenest eyes and the longest whiskers and the heaviest fur of any cat in the kingdom. Moreover, he had hundreds of mice to his credit and no birds, for he was a good and wise grimalkin. Sometimes ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... "Gigantic," because it seems like "tempting fate" when the Titanic has been sunk. It would seem almost as if we were back in the Middle Ages when witches were burned because they kept black cats. There seems no more reason why a black stoker should be an ill omen for the Titanic than a black cat should be ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... yellow flash from them caused a darkness to swoon over her consciousness, electric, and a slight strange laugh came on his face. Her eyes would turn languidly, then close, as if hypnotized. And they lapsed into the same potent darkness. He had the quality of a young black cat, intent, unnoticeable, and yet his presence gradually made itself felt, stealthily and powerfully took hold of her. He called, not to her, but to something in her, which responded subtly, out of her ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... nodded, drew from her miniature pocket a piece of sweetstuff, extracted from the basket a small black cat, and settled in for the afternoon. Her grandmother rose, took her basket, and, with a nod and "Thank 'ee kindly, mister," ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... idea possessed him that she was fond of going to Hollow's Cottage; also he suspected that she liked Robert Moore's occasional presence at the rectory. The Cossack had perceived that whereas if Malone stepped in of an evening to make himself sociable and charming, by pinching the ears of an aged black cat, which usually shared with Miss Helstone's feet the accommodation of her footstool, or by borrowing a fowling-piece, and banging away at a tool shed door in the garden while enough of daylight remained to show ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... following him, to be led through a labyrinth of queer passages and up dark stairways to the top of the old, old house. There, in the strangest room I ever saw, we were greeted by a small brown woman, as shabby as her husband, and a supernaturally clever black cat. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... little black cat jumped on his knee as he spoke. He patted it as one pats a child to make it go to sleep: he seemed to me patting down the sod upon a grave—patting it ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... pathway. Every speech has stiffened my backbone a little. I was like the mouse who timidly tiptoed out to the saucer of brandy, and, taking a sip, went more boldly back, then came again with considerable swagger; and at last took a good drink and then strutted up and down saying, 'Bring on your old black cat!' That's how I feel, Fred,—I'm going to be a mother to these two little children whose own mother has passed on and whose father is holding up the pillars of the Empire. It would hardly be fair to leave them to public ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... eyes, and saw a goodly shepherd, with a long staff in his hand, crying to his dog, Batty, to drive his sheep to a distance; and, a little beyond, a poor woman sat at her door, looking for her black cat, that sat on the roof of the cottage, and would not come down for all the energies of her ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... court of Arras, but the fool judge decided that it was a mole, and not a witch-mark! I escaped a red gown that time, however. I laughed at his stupidity, and bewitched him for it in earnest. I was young and pretty then! He died in a year, and Satan sat on his grave in the shape of a black cat until his friends set a cross over it. I like to be a woman, I do, it is so easy to be wicked, and so nice! I always tell the girls that, and they give me twice as much as if I had told them to be good ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... round 'ad got in the habit of coming round to the back-door and asking for milk as if it was their right. Farmer Hall poisoned a saucer o' milk at last, and then 'ad to pay five shillings for a thin black cat with a mangy tail and one eye that Bob Pretty said belonged to 'is children. Farmer Hall said he'd go to jail afore he'd pay, at fust, but arter five men 'ad spoke the truth and said they 'ad see Bob's ...
— Ship's Company, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... aged house. A black cat sat on the porch thoughtfully polishing her countenance with the back of one paw. Three diminutive parti-coloured kittens frisked and rolled and toddled around her; and occasionally she seized one and washed it ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... a little hut on the out-skirts of the city. She kept a Black Cat; except for her, she was all alone. She was very old, and had brought up a great many children, and she was ...
— The Pot of Gold - And Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... rabbit foot and a black cat's bone from the left fore shoulder, and you take your mouth and scrape all the meat offin that bone, and you take that bone and sew it up in a red flannel—I know what I'm talkin' 'bout now—and you tote that in your pocket night and day—sleep with ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... There was a jet-black cat curled up on the red bricks of the kitchen hearth. After the spots had been taken out, Peggy went over to make friends with the cat. It did not seem polite to eat and run when Miss Betsy had been so kind about taking the stain out of ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... kin. He was not, however, very cordially welcomed by anyone at the Vicarage; for Mr. Woodbourne greatly disliked little dogs in the house, his wife dreaded them much among her children, and there were symptoms of a deadly feud between him and Elizabeth's only pet, the great black cat, Meg Merrilies. But still his birth, parentage, and education, were safe subjects of conversation; and all were sorry when Mrs. Hazleby had exhausted them, and began to remark how thin Elizabeth looked—to tell a story of a boy who had died of a fever, some ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... people. They have a little pug dog. There was a black cat in the yard, and the dog ran after it. It seemed as if the cat was crazy. It dragged its hind legs behind it, and pulled them with its front legs, and crawled under the barn before the dog ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, April 22, 1897, Vol. 1, No. 24 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... there were, too, "too gruesome to mention." I may at once frankly admit that I do not like the introduction of the "gruesome" graveyard element. The ladder we all had to walk under, the peacock's feathers, the black cat, the spilling of salt, breaking of mirrors, presenting of knives, wearing of green ties (not that I wore one—the colour doesn't suit my complexion) or opal rings, are fair fun, and I think that in future it would be as well to limit the satire ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... that I sometimes used to plead I thought I was hardly strong enough and old enough to hear the story again just yet. But, she never spared me one word of it, and indeed commanded the awful chalice to my lips as the only preservative known to science against 'The Black Cat'—a weird and glaring-eyed supernatural Tom, who was reputed to prowl about the world by night, sucking the breath of infancy, and who was endowed with a special thirst (as I was given ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Owl's Nest, "like clockwork, you little grinder!" as the boy expressed it, making his awkward admission to her on Christmas Eve, the two wreathing the house with holly and evergreens. This was something which Carlo and Smut the black cat thought it their duty to look into, to judge from the way they pryingly inspected the monster heap of greenery in the wide passage, where the boy and girl worked, making Inna laugh and laugh again, till her uncle peeped out of his study door to inquire ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... Think of that air! I never was so flustered. But as soon as I laid eyes on that air man, I says, says I, that air man, says I, has got the shingles, says I. I know'd the minute I seed it. And if they'd gone clean around, nothing could a saved him. I says, says I, git me a black cat. So I jist killed a black cat, and let the blood run all over the swellin'. I tell you, doctor, they's nothin' like it. That man was well in ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... front of the inn, and at the appointed hour in the evening we had a crowded audience in the room. I must give my comrade Spencer more credit than myself for the "show;" for he would have two strings to his bow. While he and I were entering the place, he picked up a black cat belonging to some poor neighbour, and quickly stowed it away in one of his capacious pockets. The cat will appear later. As John put pussy away, he said, "If t'War Pig doesn't satisfy 'em, I'll show 'em something ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... of them without telling the crew that the ship would never return to port. He had had dreams about it, and the black cat had mewed when he left home, and he saw the three magpies in a tree hard by when he stepped from the door, and many other portents of that kind. The first time he well-nigh scared some of the crew, but after ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... was at work on a grave, his spade clinking away the drift of bones that permeates the thin brown soil; but my first disappointment had taught me to expect little from Greyfriars' sextons, and I passed him by in silence. A slater on the slope of a neighbouring roof eyed me curiously. A lean black cat, looking as if it had battened on strange meats, slipped past me. A little boy at a window put his finger to his nose in so offensive a manner that I was put upon my dignity, and turned grandly off to read old epitaphs and peer through ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by the heads of our bunks, turned in, and filled up and smoked comfortably, dropping in a lazy word now and again about nothing in particular. Once I happened to look across at Dave, and saw him sitting up a bit and watching the door. The door opened very slowly, wide, and a black cat walked in, looked first at me, then at Dave, and walked out again; and the door closed ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson
... cigar, blowing a cloud of smoke luxuriously through his delicately chiselled nostrils. His eyes wandered round the cornice of the room, took in the pictures and decorations, and then came down to meet the faces of his companions. As they did so, the black cat, having finished its meal, sprang on to his shoulder to crouch there, watching the three men through the curling smoke drift with its green blinking, fiendish eyes. Dr. Nikola smiled as he noticed the effect the animal had ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... father! I have found a horse-shoe! Faith it was just in time, for t'other night I laid two straws across at Margery's door, And afterwards I fear'd that she might do me A mischief for't. There was the Miller's boy Who set his dog at that black cat of hers, I met him upon crutches, and he told me 'Twas all her ...
— Poems, 1799 • Robert Southey
... said Mrs. Eben with a sigh of perplexity. "You know that black cat we've had for two years? Eben and I have always made a lot of him, but Sara seemed to have a dislike to him. Never a peaceful nap under the stove could he have when Sara was home—out he must go. Well, a little spell ago he ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... black cat came and mewed to me, and rubbed itself against my pinafore, and walked up and down with me till I went in and got the "Ancient Mariner" and my little chair, and came back ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... dream), and was determined to have her revenge, and prevent us carrying out our plan. She had hypnotized my wife, and had her scared so that she was in great mental agony. I heard her saying, "Now you are a big black cat," or something much like this, at any rate making her think she was a cat and at the same time leaving her partly conscious of who she was. This woman looked exactly like a woman who lives in the neighborhood where my wife is now visiting and of whom she has always ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... our gaze was certainly not a little amusing. On the top of a log which we sometimes used as a table, sat the black cat, with a very demure expression on its countenance; and in front of it, sitting on the ground, with his legs extended on either side of the log, was Peterkin. At the moment we saw him he was gazing intently into the cat's face, with his nose about four inches from it,—his hands being ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... "A black cat, ma'am named Timmy after me own Tim, who give him to me, a kitten, three years ago, before he left the ould country. I promised be this and be that I'd niver part with the crature till Tim and me was made wan, and I niver have. Neither ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... is a witch? My dear Sara, what do YOU think of a woman who can turn herself into a black cat whenever she likes? Is she a witch? Or is she not? I leave it ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... an experienced critic the picture would certainly have seemed crude. It was a study of a dark-eyed child holding a large black cat. Statisticians estimate that there is no moment during the day when one or more young artists somewhere on the face of the globe are not painting pictures of ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... importance, or condoned as the result of bad habits. At all events, the statement that the revels on that occasion would be conducted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was quite enough to prove that it was the prose writer of "The Black Cat" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," and not the verso writer of "Ulalume" and "Annabel Lee" who would be the centre of attention. On that side of Poe's genius, therefore, although it is illustrated by such masterpieces of sullen ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... woolly-headed Mandy. "I hearn him yesterday, at dinner. I hearn all about it then, 'cause I got into the closet where Missis keeps the great jugs, and I hearn every word." And Mandy, who had never in her life thought of the meaning of a word she had heard, more than a black cat, now took airs of superior wisdom, and strutted about, forgetting to state that, though actually coiled up among the jugs at the time specified, she had been fast asleep ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... as any of the devout Bishop of Cloyne's metaphysics: this being decided in a full congregation of saints, only such atheists as you and Lady Fanny can deny it. I own all the facts, as many witches have done before me, and go every night in a public manner astride upon a black cat to a meeting where you are suspected to appear: this last article is not sworn to, it being doubtful in what manner our clandestine midnight correspondence is carried on. Some think it treasonable, others lewd (don't tell Lady Fanny); but all agree there ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... neither came to the banquet nor received her present; but as soon as all the others were seated at table, after bestowing their gifts upon the little Princess, she stole into the Palace, disguised as a black cat, and hid herself under the cradle until the nurses and the cradle-rockers had all turned their backs, and then she sprang out, and in an instant had stolen the little Princess's heart and made her escape, only being chased by a few dogs and scullions on her way across ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... and being careful to take a safe position, as did all the boys, I told Takahashi I was ready to photograph him and his skunk. He got a pole that was too short to suit me, and he lifted up the box-trap. A furry white and black cat appeared, with remarkably bushy tail. What a beautiful little animal to bear such opprobrium! "All same like cat," said Takahashi. "Kittee—kittee." It appeared that kitty was not in the least afraid. On the contrary ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... would have a big house of his own with horses and a carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring beside her: ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... perversity of an elder brother, he sometimes mystified her in answering her questions. Once, when she wished to know what was meant by Milton's "raven down of darkness," which was made to smile when smoothed, he explained that it was only the fur of a black cat, which sparkled when stroked! Later in life this brother wrote of her, "She has been a dear, good sister to me would that I had been half as good a brother to her." Her earliest teacher was an aged spinster, known in the village as "Marm Betty," painfully shy, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... kind of veil between us and the salutary realities of existence. If Poe be fully as gifted, he is, for this reason, less sanely endowed. It may be conceded that he is not always as shudderingly sardonic and removed from human sympathy as in "The Cask of Amontillado" or "The Black Cat"; yet it is no exaggeration to affirm that he is nowhere more typical, more himself. On the contrary, in a tale like "The Birth Mark," what were otherwise the horror and ultra-realism of it, is tempered by and merged in the suggestion that no ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... ceiling, and hung with objects that required a moment to recognize. Among them, when closely examined, could be found two or three bats, dried; a string of snake's eggs, blackened by being smoked; a tail and two legs of a black cat; a bunch of the dried leaves of the black hellebore; a snake's skin—not the "shedder" or superficial skin, but the cuticle itself, peeled from the writhing reptile; two objects that might have been spotted toads, run over by wagons until thoroughly flattened—then dried; ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... looks into a basin of water. In the visions of my subject, Lea, typical forms were pictured, which always recurred. Regarded as symbols they were, as subsequent analysis showed, almost all subjected to inward accentuation or intro-determination. Thus, for instance, a black cat appeared. At first it appeared as representative of Lea's grandmother, who was cat-like, malicious and fawning. Later the cat stood for the corresponding traits that she perceived in herself. Above all the cat is the symbol of her grandmother, so the grandmother (or cat) ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... this year 1874 Rossetti was again occupied with the picture which he had commenced in the preceding spring, entitled, ‘The Bower Maiden’—a girl in a room with a pot of marigolds and a black cat. It was painted from ‘little Annie’ (a cottage-girl and house assistant at Kelmscott), and it ‘goes on’ (to quote the words of one of his letters) ‘like a house on fire. This is the only kind of picture one ought to do—just copying the materials, and no more: all ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... everything and was always sneezing at the wrong time, just when we were supposed to be quiet. Also, he was about the only one in the gang whose mother was superstitious,—such as thinking it is bad luck if a black cat crosses the road in front of you, or good luck if you find a horseshoe and hang it above one of the ...
— Shenanigans at Sugar Creek • Paul Hutchens
... the same odd kind of an attraction towards Paul as Paul had towards her. She would make him move his chair to her side of the fire, instead of sitting opposite, and there he would remain studying every line of Mrs. Pipchin's face, while the old black cat lay coiled up on the fender purring and winking at the fire, and Paul went on studying Mrs, Pipchin and the cat and the fire, night after night, as if they were a history of necromancy in ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... red-tiled roof, the little garden in front of it gay with hollyhocks and dahlias. A group of barefooted children were standing by the gate feeding some chickens and ducks, a large dog was lying asleep at the top of the steps, and a black cat was basking in the morning sunshine on the low garden wall. It was, to my mind, an extremely pretty scene, and it made me long to be busy ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... and hang on." "Strike from the shoulder." "A kick for a blow, always bestow." "When you get a good thing, keep it—keep it." "When you get a black cat, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... from a sick friend's' (it's well to throw in a few sympathetic touches if ye can). 'Suddenly an animal, a strange animal, came by, something like a mad bull' (of course you can enlarge or diminish the animal as required; in the mist of night I have found a black cat very telling). 'She saw the vision quite plainly. It passed, touched her, there was a word in the air whose significance she was unable to determine, and in the morning the friend was well—or dead.' For conversational purposes it ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... a small black cat that belonged to our leech at Bures in the old days. It would let none come near it but its master. Yet I have many times seen it perched on the shoulder of the town witch, and ...
— King Olaf's Kinsman - A Story of the Last Saxon Struggle against the Danes in - the Days of Ironside and Cnut • Charles Whistler
... enters into details. On the reception of a convert, a toad made its appearance, which was adored by the assembled crowd. On sitting down to the banquet a black cat comes upon the stage, double the size of an ordinary dog, advancing backwards with up-turned tail. The neophytes, one after another, kissed this feline demon, with due solemnity, on the back. Walter ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... them attributed his good fortune to the working of some spell peculiarly brought about by the influence of certain "signs." The champion bareback rider recalled that David had found a horseshoe no longer ago than ten days. The Iron-jawed woman substituted the black cat charm, while Mademoiselle Denise held out for the virtues of occasional encounters with Ernie Cronk, the hunchback, whose hump he must have touched ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... and opened with an eager rather than a trembling hand. She seemed to fear nothing, and to be intent only on obtaining possession of some coveted treasure. As she pulled out the drawer, she was startled by a very unexpected incident. A great black cat, suddenly released from imprisonment, sprang out of the drawer, and, terrified by the appearance of the naughty girl, ran around the room several times, and then disappeared through an open window. ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... development of any single story, he has run him close even there, and has beaten him in the sustained ingenuity of continuous invention; The story of 'The Speckled Band' has a flavour almost as gruesome and terrible as Poe's 'Black Cat,' and an unusual faculty for dramatic narrative is displayed throughout the whole clever series. The Sherlock Holmes stories are far, indeed, from being Dr. Doyle's best work, but it is to them that he mainly owes his popularity. They took the imaginative side of the general ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... such fascinating hoaxes as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall," "MSS. Found in a Bottle," "A Descent Into a Maelstrom" and "The Balloon Hoax"; such tales of conscience as "William Wilson," "The Black Cat" and "The Tell-tale Heart," wherein the retributions of remorse are portrayed with an awful fidelity; such tales of natural beauty as "The Island of the Fay" and "The Domain of Arnheim"; such marvellous studies in ratiocination as the "Gold-bug," "The Murders ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... not approached the tragic. Sometimes it degenerated to the broadest farce comedy. Thus, on one occasion when the devil was being read out of the mother superior, a crashing sound was heard and a huge black cat tumbled down the chimney and scampered about the room. At once the cry was raised that the devil had taken the form of a cat, a mad chase ensued, and it would have gone hard with pussy had not a nun chanced to recognize in it the ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... and clean it looked!—like the loft at home, where he and Gwen and the black cat's kittens played ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... uncalculated after that—the events that took place in this little modern room at the top of Putney Hill between midnight and sunrise—that Dr. Silence was hardly able to follow and remember it all. It came about with such uncanny swiftness and terror; the light was so uncertain; the movements of the black cat so difficult to follow on the dark carpet, and the doctor himself so weary and taken by surprise—that he found it almost impossible to observe accurately, or to recall afterwards precisely what it was he had seen or in ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... go, left it hanging, and sat down on a great stone, with her black cat, who had followed her all around the cave, by her side. Then she began to knit, and mutter awful words. The snake hung like a huge leech, sucking at the stone; the cat stood with his back arched, and his tail like a piece of ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... Peterson left her lonely squatter home two weeks before with no companion but her vicious black cat. The woman had intervals of sanity, and during those periods her thoughts turned to a dark-haired boy, growing up in a luxurious home. In these rare days she donned her rude clothing, and with the cat ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... concocted by Macbeth's witches. And think you he has disappeared? Unbelievable as it may seem, it was only a short time ago that a case was reported from New York where the skin of a freshly killed black cat was applied as a remedy for an ailment that had refused to yield to the prescribed drugging! And only a few years ago some one applied to the Liverpool museum for permission to touch a sick child's head with one of the prehistoric stone ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and above a double proportion of philosophic gravity, which he had assumed for the occasion, was improved by a thick beard, white as snow, that reached to his middle, and upon each shoulder sat a prodigious large black cat which had been tutored for ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... whose name I afterward learned was Jack, and who came next to Miss Laura in age, gave a low whistle and said, "Doesn't the old lady come out strong when any one or anything gets abused? I'll never forget the day she found me setting Jim on that black cat of the Wilsons. She scolded me, and then she cried, till I didn't know where to look. Plague on it, how was I going to know he'd kill the old cat? I only wanted to drive it out of the yard. Come on, let's ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... of the cottage, there was no one to be seen within. The fire was burning hot and flameless; a three-footed pot stood half in it; other sign of presence they saw none. As Alister stooped searching for some implement to serve their need, in shot a black cat, jumped over his back, and disappeared. The same instant they heard a groan, and then first discovered the old woman in bed, seemingly very ill. Ian went up ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Newport and Staten Island,—is wedded even in summer to her trim back-yard that looks like a picture in a seed catalogue, and, like a faithful spouse, declines to leave it or Josephus for more than a few days. Josephus is a large, sleek, black cat, a fence-top sphinx, who sits all day in summer wearing a silver collar, watching the sparrows and the neighbourhood's wash with impartial interest, while at night he goes on excursions of his own to a stable down a crooked street in "Greenwich Village," where ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... intellect and the mind, but are equally remarkable. Satan, who prowls about, assumes many forms, sometimes disguising himself as a woman, and again, even as a saint. But, once overthrown, he appears in all his ugliness: "a black cat, larger than a dog, his huge eyes emitting flame, his tongue long, large, and bloody, his tail twisted and raised in the air, and his whole body disgusting to the last degree." He is the one thing that is hated, and the only preoccupation. People ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... than something he saw one bright sunny morning, while all the boys were hanging on the fence of the next house, and watching the martins flying down to the ground from their box in the gable. The birds sent out sharp cries of terror or anger, and presently he saw a black cat crouching in the grass, with half-shut eyes and an air of dreamy indifference. The birds swept down in longer and lower loops towards the cat, drawn by some fatal charm, or by fear of the danger that threatened their colony from the mere presence of the ...
— A Boy's Town • W. D. Howells
... cried; and—could Eileen believe her eyes?—for one instant she saw the knight flash past her, and then there was nothing living in the room besides her but a great black cat clinging by his claws half-way up the arras, and a little brown ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... the King's realm, but one of them lived in a lonely place on the outskirts of the kingdom. There, for the last fifty years, she had shut herself up in a ruined tower with only a black cat to keep her company, and as she kept herself to herself, everybody had forgotten her very existence. The result was that she was not invited to the christening feast, and though she had nobody but herself to blame for this, she was ...
— The Sleeping Beauty • C. S. Evans
... Uncle Mart slipped up sometimes alone And drew the ladder in, to lie and moon Over some novel all the afternoon. And one time Johnty, from the crowd below,— Outraged to find themselves deserted so— Threw bodily their old black cat up in The airy fastness, with much yowl and din. Resulting, while a wild periphery Of cat went circling to another tree, And, in impassioned outburst, Uncle Mart Loomed up, and thus relieved his ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... chest of drawers, putting some things on top, and thus brought the door close. I was just about to blow out the candle to get into bed, when I heard a scrambling in the chimney, and you may believe it or not, but it's the solemn truth—a black cat jumped from the fire-place, ran and leaped a-top of the things I had placed against the door, put her paw upon the handle of it, gave me one sidelong glance, opened the door itself and passed out. I was too frightened for anything ...
— Old New England Traits • Anonymous
... now? The boat was already some distance out on the sea, and the wind, which blew from land, was driving it still further out. Lasse was frightened and began to cry. But there was no one on the shore to hear him. Only a big crow perched alone in the birch tree; and the gardener's black cat sat under the birch tree, waiting to catch the crow. Neither of them troubled themselves in the least about Little Lasse, who was drifting ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... known to be locked, and to my surprise I found it bolted. Thinking that perhaps the widow had gone to purchase provisions, I walked around to the rear of the building and tried every door, but found that all of them were locked. A miserably starved black cat, that made a ten foot leap when she first espied me, was the only sign of life on the place, while the many rag-stuffed broken window panes plainly indicated that great changes had been made at the "big" house since my last departure. There was something uncanny ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... young black cat that was curled comfortably on the skirt of her dress, and stroking him ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... at the window, and in came a squirrel in a great hurry with a bag of nuts slung over his shoulder. He disturbed the great black cat who was asleep on the window-sill, and she bristled with rage, and swore at him; but he took no notice, and was off again in a jiffy, after having drunk a tiny little glass of milk which stood all ready for him on the table. ...
— Fairy Tales from the German Forests • Margaret Arndt
... nex' is First Thessalonians; Second Thessalonians, he's dead an' gone to the Bad Place 'cause he skunt a cat,—I don't mean skin the cat on a actin' role like me an' Wilkes Booth Lincoln does,—he skunt a sho' 'nough cat what was a black cat, what was a ole witch, an' she come back an' ha'nt him an' he growed thinner an' thinner an' weasler an' weasler, tell finely he wan't nothin' 't all but a skel'ton, an' the Bad Man won't 'low nobody 't all to give his parch' tongue no water, an' he ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... here yet, an' I'm tellin' you that sthraight. They say a black cat's full av th! divil, but Diablo's ould Nick hisself, though I'm sayin'it was th' b'y Shandy's fault sp'ilin' him. An' if it wasn't fer Miss Allis it's a pity you couldn't a-sold him the Chestnut. He's a sawhorse—he's as heavy in th' ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... was a wheel, which turned in a high wooden fork. A wryneck made fast to it by a little chain, and by springing from spoke to spoke kept it in continual motion.—[From Theocritus' idyl: The Sorceress.]—A large black cat crouched beside her, and smelt at some ravens' and owls' heads, from which the eyes had not ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... flashed a smile at Alma, picked up her cat, and went out. At the door she turned and looked back, with the big black cat ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... cousin who had served as a Bashi Bazouk, and knew not the meaning of fear. But I DID, and perhaps even Nelson would have found out "what fear was," or the boy in the Norse tale would have "learned to shiver," if he had been left alone to peruse 'Jane Eyre,' and the 'Black Cat,' and the 'Fall of the House of Usher,' as I was. Every night I expected to wake up in my coffin, having been prematurely buried; or to hear sighs in the area, followed by light, unsteady footsteps on the stairs, and then to ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... countries than the foreign ministers of these countries are themselves. Foreign governments and our own government live from hand to mouth and have fewer deep plans than people might suppose. There is an old warning that you should not spend too much time in looking at the dark cupboard for the black cat that is not there, and I think if sometimes we were a little less suspicious of deep design or motive that the affairs of the world ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... little black cat I wanted to show you, but he's gone off somewhere. I'd take him with me—only it's bad luck to move cats. He's awful wild—won't let anybody pet him but me. Mamma says he's an imp of Satan—but I love him. He runs up a tree when anybody ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... finally forded a stream, and after two hours arrived at an open clearing, in the centre of which was a hut. An ape occupied the threshold, a vampire bat hung from a convenient beam, a cobra was curled underneath, and a black cat welcomed them with arched back. The ape spoke Tamil freely and then marched off, reflecting upon which circumstance, the doctor thought that it was quite the strangest thing ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite |
